Tag Archive: Miles Davis

All of You: The Last Tour 1960 is a beautifully packaged compilation into a 4-CD set of radio broadcasts and private recordings that have never before been collected to such an extent in one release. The Miles Davis Quintet with Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb was part of a Spring 1960 European tour that also featured the groups of Stan Getz and Oscar Peterson. Coltrane was a reluctant participant, as he was in the process of going out on his own as a leader. European audiences were familiar with his work on Miles’ Kind of Blue LP, but Trane’s own Giant Steps had yet to make its way across the pond. The result was that the reaction by audiences and critics to Coltrane’s solos, and their frequent “sheets of sound” segments was not…

Mastered by Kevin Gray from the original mono master tapes. Relaesed by Analogue Productions.
There are a multitude of reasons why Bags’ Groove remains a cornerstone of the post-bop genre. Of course there will always be the lure of the urban myth surrounding the Christmas Eve 1954 session — featuring Thelonious Monk — which is documented on the two takes of the title track. There are obviously more tangible elements, such as Davis’ practically telepathic runs with Sonny Rollins (tenor sax). Or Horace Silver’s (piano) uncanny ability to provide a stream of chord progressions that supply a second inconspicuous lead without ever overpowering. Indeed, Davis’ choice of former Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra and concurrent Modern Jazz Quartet members…

Thought by many to be among the most revolutionary albums in jazz history, Miles Davis‘ Bitches Brew solidified the genre known as jazz- rock fusion. The original double LP included only six cuts and featured up to 12 musicians at any given time, some of whom were already established while others would become high-profile players later, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Airto, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Don Alias, Bennie Maupin, Larry Young, and Lenny White among them. Originally thought to be a series of long jams locked into grooves around keyboard, bass, or guitar vamps, Bitches Brew is actually a recording that producer Teo Macero assembled from various jams and takes by razor blade, splice to splice, section to section.

Analogue Productions has gone into the deepest reserves of Prestige Records jazz archives for an extensive Hybrid Mono SACD reissue release series and restored this album to a very high audio fidelity standard.Relaxin’ features the Miles Davis Quintet in a pair of legendary recording dates — from May and October of 1956 — which would generate enough music to produce four separate long-players: Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and Steamin’.
Each of these is considered not only to be among the pinnacle of Davis’ work, but of the entire bop subgenre as well. As with the other titles, Relaxin’ contains a variety of material which the band had concurrently been performing in their concert appearances. In a brilliant stroke of time…

Cookin’ is the first of four albums derived from the Miles Davis Quintet’s fabled extended recording session on October 26, 1956; the concept being that the band would document its vast live-performance catalog in a studio environment, rather than preparing all new tracks for its upcoming long-player. The bounty of material in the band’s live sets — as well as the overwhelming conviction in the quintet’s studio sides — would produce the lion’s share of the Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and Steamin’ albums. As these recordings demonstrate, there is an undeniable telepathic cohesion that allows this band — consisting of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums) — to work so efficiently…

Although chronologically the last to be issued, this collection includes some of the best performances from the tapes which would produce the albums Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and ultimately, Steamin’.
A primary consideration of these fruitful sessions is the caliber of musicians — Miles Davis (trumpet), Red Garland (piano), John Coltrane (tenor sax), and Philly Joe Jones (drums) — who were basically doing their stage act in the studio. As actively performing musicians, the material they are most intimate with would be their live repertoire. Likewise, what more obvious place than a studio is there to capture every inescapable audible nuance of the combo’s musical group mind. The end results are consistently astonishing. At the center of Steamin’, as with most outings by this band, are the group…

Miles Davis’ My Funny Valentine marks several historic turning points. For Davis, the live album represents the final time on record he’d perform standards rather than original compositions. It also stands as one of the last documents made by the same band that created Seven Steps of Heaven. As such, the work teems with bebop melodicism yet steers clear of Davis’ oft-controversial avant-garde leanings. Most significantly, however, the set captures the ballads performed at a benefit concert from New York’s then-new Philharmonic Hall just months after President Kennedy’s assassination. Tapping into a seemingly divine inspiration, Davis never sounded so elegant or poetic.
Boasting gorgeous sound, Mobile Fidelity’s reissue of the trumpeter’s scintillating work bookends…

The 2014 double-disc anthology Take Off: The Complete Blue Note Albums compiles tracks jazz trumpeter Miles Davis recorded for Blue Note Records during the ’50s. These are recordings made after Davis left Prestige, but not including the 1949-1950 sessions later released as the classic 1957 album Birth of the Cool.
Here, instead, we get recordings that were initially released as 10″ LPs titled Young Man with a Horn, Miles Davis, Vol. 2, and Miles Davis, Vol. 3. Also included are all of the alternate takes that accompanied the original releases. Backing Davis on these sessions is a veritable who’s who of future jazz hall of famers, including drummer Art Blakey, pianist Horace Silver, saxophonist Jackie McLean, and others. These recordings were made…